


Death is So Permanent

by LilyInTheSnow



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Background Relationships, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, Gay Steve Rogers, M/M, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Past Violence, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Tags Are Hard, There's gonna be blood okay?, Threats of Violence, Tony runs a food truck, Vampire Bruce Banner, Vampire Bucky Barnes, Vampire Natasha Romanov, Vampire Thor (Marvel), at some point, idek, umm....
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 14:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyInTheSnow/pseuds/LilyInTheSnow
Summary: If Steve had paid better attention to guy he’d have known what he was long before he tried to rip his throat out. Christ, how had he not figured it out? No one had skin like that. No one alive anyway and he’d fucking known that. It might have been the five o’clock shadow that had thrown him off. The ones that had taken him before hadn’t had facial hair and he’d stupidly assumed they just didn’t have facial hair.It definitely hadn’t been because the guy was fucking gorgeous and Steve had wanted to drop to his knees and suck his dick as soon as he’d seen him. He had smiled back at Steve when he’d seen him staring. Had stalked across the bar and introduced himself and all of Steve’s careful planning had gone right out the window with the promise of rough, sweaty, dirty sex. But when he’d tried to take a bite out of Steve, he’d gone and pissed him off by not letting him eat him.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I know. I have 3 other things I'm supposed to be writing on, but I have writers block on those and maybe since this is out of the way now, I can get work done on the other ones.
> 
> Not sure how updates on this one are gonna go but I've got the whole thing mapped out pretty much so we'll see.
> 
> (This is probably not as serious in parts as the summary suggests. I gotta have my comic relief, but it will be more serious than I usually am. Maybe. We'll see.)
> 
> This is unbeta'd so if there's any fuckups they're my bad. <3

_Now_

 

Steve tripped over a tree root and would have berated himself over how stereotypically horror flick it was when he realized he’d twisted his ankle. _If_ he hadn’t been running for his life. He winced at the rocks and twigs that had dug into his hands as he landed and scrambled to his feet, starting to run as best as he could. Each hobbling step made the pain in his ankle worse, though he’d rather be in pain than dead.

Either way in a few minutes none of it would matter anymore. He could practically feel death breathing down his neck. Could feel his icy hands around his throat. Or maybe that was the vampire’s hands he thought belatedly as he was jerked to a stop. He fought for breath as cold hands clamped around his throat cutting off his sharp cry and he stared into blue grey eyes, refusing to meet death blindly. He’d spent half of his life staring death in the face. He wouldn’t stop now. Even if he had been a fucking moron and taken off his collar. They’d have realized he was looking for them immediately if they’d seen it though.

If Steve had paid better attention to guy he’d have known what he was long before he tried to rip his throat out. Christ, how had he not figured it out? No one had skin like that. No one alive anyway and he’d fucking known that. It might have been the five o’clock shadow that had thrown him off. The ones that had taken him before hadn’t had facial hair and he’d stupidly assumed they just didn’t have facial hair. It definitely hadn’t been because the guy was fucking gorgeous and Steve had wanted to drop to his knees and suck his dick as soon as he’d seen him. He had smiled back at Steve when he’d seen him staring. Had stalked across the bar and introduced himself and all of Steve’s careful planning had gone right out the window with the promise of rough, sweaty, _dirty_ sex.

But when he’d tried to take a bite out of Steve he’d gone and pissed him off by not letting him eat him. It was kind of funny actually. He had fucked up, majorly, and if he wanted to be technical about it, it was all Sam’s fault for texting him to tell him that the redheaded woman was back at the bar. Steve had debated wearing his collar but in the end had decided not to because he was afraid they would realize he knew about them. He had all his other silver though. Duh.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the knife, flicking the blade open. It was knocked from his hand and he yelped when the hot douchebag shook him with a snarl. Shit. He was pretty sure this was Sam’s fault. He shouldn’t have answered the phone when Sam had called him before to tell him about the disappearing redhead. Nothing good ever came from calls in the middle of the night even though that was when Sam usually called him because they both mostly worked nights and slept most of the day. He was going to haunt the shit out of Sam.

 

 

 


	2. Four A.M. Phonecalls

 

_Two weeks ago_

 

Steve groaned lifting his head from his keyboard as his cell phone vibrated next to his elbow. Shit. He’d been doing research again and fallen asleep hunched over his computer. He grabbed the phone to see what time it was, less worried about who was calling because there was only one person who’d call him for anything in the middle of the night, and saw that it was almost four in the morning.

“Shit.” He’d been asleep for three hours. He sat up with a wince as his spine popped what felt like all the way down and answered his phone. “Hey, Sam. What’s wrong?”

“Shit, were you actually asleep? And nothing’s wrong. I thought your kind slept when the sun woke.”

“Ha. What you got for me then?”

“Listen; probably take this with a grain of salt, but whatever. I know you, so you won’t. There was this smokin’ fine lady at the bar tonight.” Sam was a bartender and he was used to pretty women, falling in and out of love with them on a nightly basis, but Steve had known Sam for ten years and knew when Sam used the words ‘smokin’ fine’ then she was absolutely gorgeous and Sam wanted to have little chocolate babies with her.

“What was special about her?”

“You told me what to look for right?”

“Yeah.”

“Super pale skin, kind of looked like it glowed when the light hit her just right. But that’s common for the pale and pasty such as yourself. I swear that time I saw your naked ass looked like a full moon. A tiny full moon, but still. That shit’s reflective.” Steve rolled his eyes. It wouldn’t do any good to argue that it was his Irish parents’ fault that he was so pale and pasty. “She had super red hair and dude; I want to have little coffee and cream colored babies with her okay? I don’t know how cute they’d be with that red hair, but I still want them.”

“Sam. What’d she look like?”

“Well, I tried to take a picture all sneaky like. You know how crowded it gets on Fridays, man. She should never have noticed.”

“But she did.”

“Yeah. Hell yeah. Didn’t get freaky or pissed off though. Just gave me a smile that about melted my brain and then left the bar.”

Fuck. “Are you home?”

“Where else would I be?”

“Just checking.” From what little Steve had managed to find, they didn’t bother with small mishaps like that. Probably it wasn’t even the first time someone had tried to take her picture. Usually people would pass it off as having been too drunk and focused on the wrong spot when trying to surreptitiously take the photo. Sam didn’t drink on the job though. “Anyway, you tried to take a picture?”

“Yeah. I got her in it. I know I did. That’s why I’m calling you. She’s not in the fucking picture. I asked Clint if he’d seen her. Just so I’d know I wasn’t completely bat-shit. He saw her too. I even went over the security feed before I came home. She’s not in any of it. So I asked Clint if he’d seen her say anything and he said she was with some guy talking about staying in a castle upstate, but then she said something about another castle, but wherever or whatever it was he doesn’t know because it wasn’t in English and you know his lip reading is dead on most the time.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine.”

Clint was seventy percent deaf in both ears and Sam’s fellow bartender who also taught archery to underprivileged kids three days a week. Steve taught art classes on the two days that Clint didn’t teach. Clint was a bit of a stoner, but a really great guy and wasn’t a danger to anything but pizza and assholes that were mean to animals. His weed was medicinal anyway, most of it. When he wasn’t at work he was at home wearing ratty jeans and holey t-shirts with a coffee pot actually set up to run on his coffee table ‘because why else would it be called a coffee table, Steve?’ and plugged into an extension cord that ran from the kitchen to the living room. Probably it wasn’t safe, but so far Clint hadn’t burned his apartment down so Steve figured it was all right.

“Since when are there castles upstate?”

“I don’t know. I’ll look them up.” Steve typed a quick note onto the Word document he had open then saved it and shut down his computer.

“How many castles in New York could there be?”

“No telling. Hey, I’m gonna swing by here in a little bit okay?” He was already grabbing his wallet and keys and stepping into his boots, making sure the knife was as comfortable as he could get it against his ankle. He wanted to see the picture Sam had taken and see if Sam could describe the woman well enough for Steve to sketch her. His sketchbook was already in his backpack hanging on a hook by the door with his jacket.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“And I just had a nice nap and you don’t go to sleep until daylight anyway. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were the vampire.”

“The only blood anything I’m dangerous to is blood oranges.” Steve shuddered as he let himself out of his apartment, making sure all three locks were done up behind him. He didn’t know how Sam could eat the nasty things. All the fruit reminded Steve of were those nasty orange flavored baby aspirin his mother had shoved down his throat every time he’d had a fever as a child. Which was often.

“Gross. I’ll bring nachos from Tony’s. I’ll be there in thirty.”

“Hell yea, Italian nachos!”

Steve hung up with a laugh and stuck his phone in his pocket as he made his way out of his building. He hopped onto the motorcycle that was definitely too big for him and started it with a roar, peeling out of the parking lot and heading toward Tony’s. One thing about being as small as Steve was and riding a Harley as large as the one he rode, was that either people made fun of him or they asked for his number. He’d picked up a few guys that way. And the assholes that made fun of him when they saw him standing next to the bike usually stopped when he climbed up and straddled it then rode off without a single fucking wobble.

After twenty minutes of hunting down Tony’s Steve finally found the truck parked next to the bar Sam worked at. Of fucking course, but that also meant he was only a block away from Sam’s. The food truck was always open and Steve had never seen anyone but Tony working. The man must have been fueled on mass amounts of coffee and energy drinks. It didn’t matter what time of day Steve went by for nachos or whatever pasta was being cooked that day, Tony was there. Steve wasn’t even sure the dude was actually Italian but the food was cheap enough for even broke as hell artists to buy and so, so good.

Especially the fucking nachos. The chips were actually egg roll wrappers that had been cut into triangles and deep fried. Then they were covered in bites of chicken, Italian sausage, sautéed onion, and bell peppers and then drenched in Alfredo sauce and sprinkled with real Parm and scattered with pepperoncini, diced tomato, and black olives. They were the best nachos Steve had ever eaten. Tony always loaded them up and if he flirted with Steve a bit that was fine too. Steve always flirted back and they had fun even if the flirting never went anywhere because Tony was hopelessly devoted to his wife of six years, Pepper.

He killed the bike and hopped off after setting up the kickstand, waving at Tony as he walked up. Tony’s brown eyes brightened and he grinned.

“There’s my favorite biker twink.”

“Hey.”

“Working again?”

“Nah, going to Sam’s.”

“I still don’t know why you haven’t hit that,” Tony murmured as he held out a milk crate with Steve’s name stenciled onto it.

Steve snorted as he took the milk crate from Tony and sat it on the ground so he could stand on it to actually reach the window. “Yeah, no.” Sam was too much like a brother to him. Besides, the one time they’d actually tried to sleep together had been awkward as hell. It had been Sam’s ‘let’s find out if I like dudes too’ phase and that was before they’d gotten as close as they were now. That was also the one time Sam had seen Steve’s ‘full moon’. “If I hook up with Sam I won’t have time for you anymore, Tony. You know that.”

“My feels.” Tony wiped away a fake tear and Steve laughed resting his elbows on the small counter. “Nachos or lasagna?”

“Fuuuck.” Tony’s lasagna was fucking to die for. “Damn it. I already told Sam I’d pick up nachos.”

Tony laughed already moving to the cooler to grab the stuff for the nachos. “I’ll hook you up.”

“Thanks.”

“But only if you step into my office.” Tony gave him an exaggerated eyebrow waggle and Steve rolled his eyes. “Ten minutes, tops. Pepper’s coming by at some point. We won’t have time for much. A little B, a little J. Have to keep it clean in here you know.”

“Ain’t nothin’ quick, little, or clean about my blow jobs, Tony.”

Tony paused in cutting up the eggroll wrappers and blinked with a glazed over look in his eyes. He finally shook himself and Steve grinned. “If I wasn’t married to Pepper, I’d be married to you.”

“I already told Pepper if she fucked up your relationship you were mine.”

“Like Pepper’s going to be the one to fuck things up.”

“True. She’s a saint. Much too good for you.”

“I know it.” Tony grinned then swept the cut up wrappers into the deep fryer.

Ten minutes later Steve left Tony’s with a blown kiss, two orders of nachos and two orders of lasagna. He tucked it into his backpack and left for Sam’s with one last leer and a laugh. When he got to Sam’s he parked on the sidewalk around the corner of the building. He was pretty sure it was illegal, but no one said anything and he hadn’t gotten a ticket yet, so he figured it was okay. Or at least no one actually cared enough to bitch about it.

He snagged his key ring from the ignition and climbed off the bike, popping his back with a wince. He’d done a number on his back falling asleep on his computer like he had. He reached over and locked the front wheel with the key for it then walked around the building and let himself in. Sam had given him the key years ago. Probably he regretted it some days. At least Steve had brought nachos this time.

Sam was waiting at the open door to his apartment and yanked Steve into a hug that he didn’t have time to reciprocate before grabbing the strap to his backpack and dragging him into the apartment.

“Nachos. Gimme.”

“Nice to see you too, Sam.” He shrugged off his backpack and handed it to Sam then went into the kitchen to grab a couple beers from the fridge.

“Hi, Steve.”

Sam was already sat on the couch with the food spread out in front of him on the coffee table when Steve got back into the living room.

“You give Stark a blowjob finally or what,” he asked around a mouthful of food as Steve handed him a beer.

“How do you think I afford to eat there all the time?” He winked as he said it and Sam laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Pepper would castrate the both of you.”

Steve bobbed his head side to side in thought. “Eh, some people like to watch.” Sam snorted and Steve sat next to him, picking up his own box of nachos. “I’ve had at least two couples that did, so shut your face.”

“You used to be so shy, Steve Rogers. What happened to you?”

“I figured out that there are actually people out there that like guys like me. Even if only for a night. Or an hour. Or ten minutes in a club bathroom.”

“Dude, you gotta be careful with that shit.”

“I am, Sam. I promise. Condoms all around.”

“That too, but I mean…it’s fine short term, but when you’re edging toward thirty sleeping with random dudes that just want to hookup is kind of…I’m not judging you, you know that. It’s just…what about settling down? Adopting a bunch of babies and shit? Like you always talked about.”

“That would imply long term relationships and no one wants me for something like that. And I’m twenty-six, you asshole. Edging toward thirty,” Steve scoffed then shoved a chip laden with Alfredo sauce and toppings in his mouth.

“Steve.”

“Don’t. It’s okay. I’m content with my lot in life.” He’d long ago given up ever hoping for a family, stability, a life he could share with the man he loved, a home. The guy that had wanted all of that didn’t exist anymore. He’d died seven years ago when Steve had gotten attacked.

Sam cooed at him and Steve glared. He used to be content with it, but whenever Sam went all Bartending Therapist on him it made him wish for something he’d never have. Something he could never let himself have.

Steve ignored Sam and his cooing noises as he finished his nachos and then started in on his lasagna. “What about the picture you took?”

Sam held out his cell phone and Steve sat his food aside then took the phone and unlocked it. The picture was already up on the screen and Steve immediately noticed the void in the group near the bar where another body should be, but wasn’t. The bar was always crowded on Friday nights, bodies pressed up against each other in a bid to get Sam or Clint’s attention. Barely enough room to breathe much less have a person sized gap in the room. Especially that close to where Sam and Clint poured drinks.

“Shit. Sam, this is great.”

“How’s it great? The woman I want to have babies with is a ghost.”

“Not a ghost.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sam shoved a bit of lasagna in his mouth, chewing loudly because he knew it annoyed Steve. “Still, she’s not there.”

“No, yeah. That sucks, but this is kind of awesome.” It wasn’t enough to go on, not really, but Steve could always hang out at the bar as long as long as his asthma wasn’t acting up and see if he could find Sam’s lady. Other than that he had some castles to look up and he had a feeling that they wouldn’t be staying in any that were on the grid. Too much attention that way. He’d start with abandoned ones and work from there. He’d have to find something. Even if it was a big fat nothing it was still better than sitting at home being useless until he got a commission. He didn’t work on his own stuff very much anymore.

“No.”

“What?”

“I see that look in your eyes. No. You already can’t breathe.”

“I got my steroids the other day. I haven’t taken them yet, but I’ll take them like I always do before I go out.”

“And you whine because your allergies act up. Besides, I know how the steroids affect your moods too. You’re already salty and beg for fights wherever you go. If you take your prednisone it’s going to make you bat-shit and you’ll get into a fight and I’ll have to have the bouncer haul you out of there. Please don’t make me have the bouncer haul you out. It’s embarrassing.”

“For the other guy,” Steve muttered staring down at the last few bites of his lasagna. “I can take care of myself, Sam.”

“Steve.”

“Don’t. I don’t need to be babied.”

“I’m not babying you. One day you’re going to get hurt and it’s going to be bad. Like…like before.”

“That will never happen again.”

He’d taken as many precautions as he could. He knew for a fact that silver burned them, which he’d found out by accident when the vampire had grabbed his neck, the chain on the cross his mother used to wear had burned him. Garlic would just make him smell bad. Crosses were a load of bunk unless they were made from silver and you pretty much just stabbed them with it. Holy water was probably bullshit too, but he always made sure he had a small bottle with him just in case. Probably it wouldn’t work since he’d technically stolen it from the little fancy birdbath looking thing just in the door of the church, but if it failed he always had silver on him somewhere. All of his piercings were silver. He wore a wide band of silver around his throat with a silver plated titanium padlock on it because they always went for the throat first. He carried a custom solid silver pocket knife that had cost him an arm and a leg and kept a silver knife in his right boot.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself be taken again. Last time he had only escaped by pure fucking luck. They’d partially healed him and left him crying in the empty apartment complex, starved and weak from blood loss and dehydration. The fucks had forgotten to lock the window and when they had bedded down for the day Steve had managed to crawl to it and get it open. He’d tried climbing out of it and had fallen instead, landing two stories down on a pile of garbage bags. He’d made it to the street after laying there for who knew how long and someone that passed by him called for an ambulance.

Nineteen year old Steve had spent weeks in the hospital getting blood transfusions and IVs of nutrients and antibiotics. He didn’t tell anyone what had happened other than he’d been taken and beaten within an inch of his life by a couple guys. He never saw their faces. They didn’t have accents. Yes, he was sure he didn’t have any enemies. He was an artist. Why would anyone want to kill him? But maybe it was someone he’d gotten into a fight with once.

So yeah, he hadn’t told anyone the truth except for Sam. Sam hadn’t believed him at first, but when Steve had shown him a bite-mark shaped scar on his inner thigh that he hadn’t told the doctors about Sam had started to believe him.

Steve had been searching for them ever since. Not the ones that had taken him, but any of them that he could find. He wanted as much information as he could get on them. Knew not to trust all the bullshit on Google. The one that had fed on him certainly hadn’t fucking sparkled and definitely hadn’t eaten deer or vermin. Sam helped him where he could, keeping an eye out at the bar. Mostly Steve wanted Sam as far away from it as possible, but since he’d been taken from a bar it was all he had to go on and he knew Sam would help him whether he wanted him to or not.

“Fine, but if you even sneer at someone I’m having you booted from the bar.”

“I don’t sneer at people.”

“You do. And sometimes it’s even cute, but not when you get your ass beat for it.”

He didn’t always get his ass beat. He’d been training lately anyway. He had taekwondo classes whenever he managed to attend them.  He was a lot stronger physically now, half due to weight training at the center where he and Clint taught classes and half from riding his bike. It took a lot of core strength to not fall over with the machine that weighed like four times more than he did.

“I won’t get my ass beat this time.” He wouldn’t. He could handle himself now. Mostly.

Sam rolled his eyes because he knew as well as Steve did that what he’d said didn’t promise no fighting. “No fighting.”

“Okay. No fighting, I promise.” He gave Sam his most innocent look, the one he usually reserved for men at the bar or even sometimes just walking down the street, and it might have been his pic on his Grindr profile too.

“That’s your wanting to get laid face. Stop it.” Sam smacked the back of his head gently.

Steve pouted then sighed and handed Sam the rest of his lasagna. “Not my fault guys like the innocent virgin thing.”

“One of these days you’re gonna meet a guy that likes all the spit and vinegar that you hide behind that little angel face.”

“I got you and Clint and Tony for that.” And he was going to change the subject because he really didn’t want Sam to get started on it again. Sam meant well, he really did, but Steve would never find anyone that would put up with his shit. “We need a plan for if your redhead comes back to the bar.”

 

 


End file.
